PROTESTANTS, CATHOLICS TALK SECRETLY

LONDON -- Leading politicians from four Protestant and Catholic parties in Northern Ireland have acknowledged secretly talking to each other since October about resuming a dialogue on ways out of the violence that has killed 2,700 people since 1969.

Though all they did was talk about talks, the disclosure by BBC television on Thursday night that the parties had held contacts among themselves led to a wave of statements, denials of any substantive progress and recriminations by politicians fearful of negative reactions of their constituents.

Apparently, the reactions were not so strong as to kill off the chances of continuing the dialogue, which has a long way to go before getting to the fundamental issues dividing the two sides.

The parties involved did not include Sinn Fein, the political wing of the outlawed Irish Republican Army, which wants unification of Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic. But talks did include representatives of both major Protestant unionist parties, a moderate, mostly Roman Catholic party and a small party supported by both sides.

The British secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Tom King, said on Friday that he was not confirming that talks had taken place but would welcome them if they had.

Officials clearly hoped the talks could resume and eventually break the deadlock immobilizing Ulster politics for two decades.

"It's too early to say it won't resume," said Peter Robinson, a 40-year- old representative of the Democratic Unionist Party of the Rev. Ian Paisley, the most militant leader in favor of keeping Northern Ireland British.

Paisley said on Saturday that he approved of Robinson's participation in the informal talks but said that they had only gotten to the point of discussing how to satisfy the insistence of his party and the Ulster Unionist Party that the functioning of the 1985 British-Irish Agreement would have to be suspended first.